Creationists

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^^^^

Falsifiability, within philosophy, was, as you say advocated by Karl Popper, it has so far not become nearly as influential as logical positivism was. It certainly is more popular in the sciences and other humanities than it is in philosophy. I personally like falsifiability since it meshes nicely with Reformed Epistemology and I have a bit of a distaste for some of the anarchic forms of modern philosophy.

Karl Popper is the only epistemologist that real scientists take even semi-seriously. In the physics community, philosophy is generally regarded as ka ka.

ruveyn

Benbob - what it is with the "abusing caps" theme? Your 11th grade English teacher have a thing about it, like my brother's teacher insuisting on pronouncing the conjunction :"and" to rhyme with "bond" and my teacher's objerctipon to deckle edged paper?

It is a legitimate way to bring in to type an approximation to intonational features, more versatile then punctuation and in these posts more acvcessible than italics or underlining.

Face it, Franco, your typed prose does not give the impression you talk like Hal.

So why waste it? By me you could go find some worthy peeople and have a mutual admiration society. Do not worry about me, I would survive your departure.

Well he was a very good philosopher. I have always found him to be particularly fair minded. He always seemed to criticize the same things I wanted to, for very different reasons than me and therefor I found him very enlightening. For example, I dislike the presumption of philosophical naturalism (I think of it as the modern equivalent of verificationism), Popper also wrote against it. When I talk to some of my friends who are more inclined towards the presumption of naturalism (notably, people who associate themselves with 'the brights' movement), who are also fans of Popper, they seem unaware of his rejection of their position. If someone were to engage them in a debate, I should like very much of they were to bring this up. I read 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' and found it immensely interesting and I find it curious that his views on science, despite being widely read, have not yet eroded this presumption.

Thankee kindly. That helps. My Philosophy Department contact spoke of Logical Positivism in terms very close to those I use for Chomsky, or some of my Lit friends for deconstruction, but did not provide details. From his account, you would have thought that Logical Positivism only began to loosen its hold on the department in the 70s. Of course, the way the U works that may be true.

Well, yes, that is true. If logic doesn't exist, there cannot be logical thinking. Logical thinking suggests that there even is anything at all like what we think of as logic. So observable cognitive behavior, or rather observable actions that indicate cognitive behavior, is actual empirical evidence that logical thinking is occurring. At least in theory that would indicate that there is such a thing as logic.

The trap, and 91 nailed it, is that in order to be fair you cannot ASSUME a logical thought process to prove logic. That effectively bans ANY kind of reasoning in describing a proof for logic itself as any mental process, regardless of how novel or silly the attempt may be, is a logical reasoning process by default.

In order to make use of logic, it has to be ASSUMED by necessity. It's circular reasoning, but there really isn't a solution.

@91: I've been purposefully avoiding the term presupposition. Presuppositions are a kind of assumption. I don't really think the two terms are interchangeable, but what really differentiates the two? Is it that presuppositions are strictly those assumptions we're forced to make because there is no possible alternative within a given line of reasoning? Or can presuppositions be more liberally applied?

In philosophy using either word is ok, outside of formal logic. In formal logic then it should be described in relation to entailment. If you want to describe a presupposed idea as something which is logically forced, the it is described as necessarily presupposed.

What do you mean by logic and 'ASSUME a logical thought process to prove logic'? Can I not just pick a textbook in (formal) logic to prove (formal) logic exist?

You implied that faith alone wasn't good enough for you so you saddled your horse and rode to distant lands to discover the truth, er, I mean you read the bible carefully. And discovered:

A) The bible isnt just one book, it's a collection.
B) The biblical message excites you and historically excited others.
C) Others protected the bible and preserved it.
D) Biblical accounts are "objective"
E) Only the supernatural can explain the biblical claims.
F) Evolution is wrong, thus spake the bible.

So the bible is true because of your opinions about the veracity of the bible based on... people liking the bible, oh, and it's length and multiple authors. And it's exciting claims. Hopefully Sinbad appears in the next episode. I like Sinbad.

No good. Did you use a thought process to pick the book? How did you know it was a textbook about formal logic?

Straw man.

You are a living strawman. As in, "..off to see the wizard". But please keep it up.

I believe that people like you damage christianity.

What is with this recent bout of psychological bologna where people think that anyone should give a flying fart as to whether you or marshal or Master_Pedant considers anyone "a disgrace" or "a bad publicity" as it really matters not anyway and I would be willing to bet that you all are just being copycats of some other source, like Dawkins or someone of equal or lesser reputation for sound argumentation.

Ad hominem? Wow...

Actually the Bible doesn't say evolution is false, and can be interpreted to describe not just evolution but abiogenesis.

God made man from the dust of the earth. That sounds a lot like abiogenesis to me. Nonliving chemicals may have combined in ways according to the properties of those chemicals in specific environments to form living systems.

Also, the Bible says creatures reproduce "after their kind." SO DOES EVOLUTION! Any offspring will resemble its parents more or less with small variations. It is important to realize that individual organisms don't evolve; populations evolve. Over time, breeding populations that were originally the same species may become diverse enough to become different species, especially if at the fringes of the tolerable environment for the original species. More time, more differences, until you have some fish becoming tetrapods, some tetrapods becoming amphibians while some tetrapods become amniotes, and so on until you have the species of ape known as human beings.

Perhaps the earth is only six thousand years old. Maybe humans were created separately and are not blood relations to other living creatures. I am willing to grant that may be possible, BUT much much much much evidence of many many many many different types suggest otherwise. The question is why, if the young earth creationists are right, why does God make it LOOK so much like they are so wrong. Why does ALL the evidence yet found of the physical world support an ancient earth and biological evolution, and NO evidence yet found supports a young earth and separate creation? That's what I want to know.